Many are familiar with the Church's emphasis on the Sacred Heart during the month of June. This is due to the fact that the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is always celebrated in June.
However, it is a moveable feast, meaning that it is not on a fixed date of the calendar. This year, it falls on June 27.
This wasn't always the case, as the feast of the Sacred Heart was celebrated on a variety of days before it was made a universal celebration.
Brief history of the Sacred Heart feast
St. John Eudes was among the first priests to promote a specific devotion to the Sacred Heart and was able to get permission for a special liturgy. The Catholic Encyclopedia provides a few details:
Little by little the devotion to the Sacred Heart became a separate one, and on August 31, 1670, the first feast of the Sacred Heart was celebrated with great solemnity in the Grand Seminary of Rennes. Coutances followed suit on October 20, a day with which the Eudist feast was thenceforth to be connected. The feast soon spread to other dioceses, and the devotion was likewise adopted in various religious communities. Here and there it came into contact with the devotion begun at Paray, and a fusion of the two naturally resulted.
These early celebrations of the Sacred Heart were confined to local communities and were not extended to the Universal Church.
Prior to St. John Eudes, there did not exist a specific liturgy that was focused on the Sacred Heart of Jesus. There were devotions to Jesus' Precious Blood and to his Five Wounds, but nothing to his Sacred Heart.
Friday after Corpus Christi Sunday
Everything changed when St. Margaret Mary Alacoque received private revelations from Jesus Christ.
Jesus reportedly spoke to her on June 16, 1675, and asked her specifically to promote a feast that honored his Sacred Heart.
I ask of you that the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi be set apart for a special Feast to honor My Heart, by communicating on that day, and making reparation to It by a solemn act, in order to make amends for the indignities which It has received during the time It has been exposed on the altars. I promise you that My Heart shall expand Itself to shed in abundance the influence of Its Divine Love upon those who shall thus honor It, and cause It to be honored.
The feast of Corpus Christi has been celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday for many centuries and typically falls during the month of June.
In recent years the feast of Corpus Christi has been transferred to the Sunday after Trinity Sunday, which means the feast of the Sacred Heart is on the Friday after Corpus Christi Sunday.
The precise date fluctuates each year, as it is determined by the celebration of Easter. This is why the feast of the Sacred Heart is always on a different Friday each year.
